[Texmacs-dev] alpha-transparency

[Norbert Nemec]

Hi there,

it was mentioned before that alpha-transparency should be addressed in 
TeXmacs. Apart from X11, all other GUIs should support this in a 
straightforward way. Is there any idea, how it could be added to the GUI 
abstraction in the cleanest way so that TeXmacs graphics could begin 
making use of it?

Specifically, it would be essential for the table border hints that I 
attempted to implement a while ago. Currently, the hints are opaque 
light-gray and get in the way for equations where the content often 
extends over the cell boundaries. Putting the hints in the background 
behind the content was not a solution either, because nested tables 
would then cover the hints of inner tables by the background color of 
outer tables.

The most difficult issue for extending the GUI abstraction seems to be a 
fallback solution for the X11 GUI and possibly other that do not offer 
alpha transparency. Once alpha transparency is used for anything 
essential in TeXmacs, these GUIs would become unusable.

Is it time to drop the X11 GUI? Or at least accept that future versions 
will make it less and less usable as alpha transparency is being used 
for more and more features in TeXmacs? It could still be included as 
legacy code, but I believe it will slow down the development of TeXmacs 
in general if every piece of code is restricted to the limitations of 
the X11 GUI.

Greetings,
Norbert